Misguided medicine, from bloodletting to radium

Before Watson and Crick, before germ theory, before we worked out that blood was recirculated round the body, doctors got up to all kinds of antics in the name of medicine. Don’t try any of these at home. Clare Wilson

Bloodletting was standard medical practice for many centuries: this illustration is from the 1356 Traite de Medecine by Aldebrande de Florence. Galen, a second-century Roman physician, taught that people sometimes produced an excess of blood, which could lead to fevers, headaches, and even seizures. For some reason everyone believed him.

(Image: The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images)

Eventually bloodletters came to favour the use of leeches over a needle-like lancet, an approach less likely to cause sudden exsanguination – death by blood loss. Today these bloodsuckers are occasionally used after surgery, in particular after operations to reattach severed body parts like a finger or ear, which can suffer from too much blood pooling in the newly attached part.

(Image: The Bridgeman Art Library/Getty Images)

This get-up was worn by doctors attending to plague victims to avoid the harmful miasmas – "bad air" thought to transmit the illness. Herbs placed in the "beak" were supposed to purify the air. The leather garments were to ensure the skin was not exposed.

(Image: Wellcome Images)

Brain surgery was carried out well before modern times. An unusual number of ancient skeletons – such as this one from 1800 years ago – have been found with a hole in the skull, with marks suggesting it was not a traumatic injury but was done carefully and deliberately. Archaeologists debate whether such "trepanning" was done for medical or ritual purposes.

(Image: Greek Culture Ministry/AP/PA)

In the late 1800s, the new phenomenon of controllable electricity was exploited in a number of dubious medical devices, such as this "electro-prophylactic" hairbrush. They were promoted as cures for an improbably large range of conditions, including dandruff, baldness, headaches and pain.

(Image: SSPL/Science Museum/Getty)

In the early 20th century it was the turn of radiation to be seen as the ultimate cure-all. This radium compress gave off radioactive radon gas so that consumers could experience the benefits of "Q rays" in the comfort of their own home.